Happiness for Humans
Daniel C. Russell
Oxford, 2012

"First, I argue that happiness is a life of *activity* [PSA: energeia]. Living a happy human life means actively living, engaging the world, finding things to live for and then living them. Furthermore, by 'activity' in this context I don't really have in mind day-to-day errands so much as the major areas of pursuit that make one's life the life it is.... Second, I argue that a happy life is a life that is *fulfilling* [PSA: entelecheia] for the one living it. Part of this fulfillment is the sense or experience of fulfillment: it is obvious that a happy life must be one that one *finds* fulfilling. Another part of it, though, is the idea that a happy life must really *be* fulfilling.... Third, I argue that a happy human life is one that is *lived well* [PSA: eudaimonia or eupraxia].... Part of human fulfillment is exercising practical wisdom [PSA: phronesis] in putting one's life together. Part of it, too, though, is emotional well-being [PSA: sophrosune], in the form of both satisfaction with one's life and harmony with practical wisdom.... Fourth and finally, I argue that human happiness is a life of activity that is *inextricable* from the particular ends that one lives for [PSA: telos]." (RUSSELL-2012, pp. 5-6)

"Aristotle thinks of virtuous activity as *any* kind of activity, insofar as it is done with practical wisdom and emotions that harmonize with practical wisdom - this is the activity, he says, that characterizes the virtuous person (NE I.13). A virtue is a state of character (II.5) concerning one's actions and emotions (II.3), and thus with the making of good choices (II.6). Accordingly, Aristotle says that the virtuous person both cares about the right sorts of things and is intelligent in the decisions he makes about those things (II.4, VI.12). As such, virtue concerns a wide range of everyday affairs: how a person handles things like money (IV.1-2) and recognition (IV.3-4), how a person copes with desires (III.10-12) and emotions like anger (IV.5) and fear (III.6-9), how a person is with friends and acquaintances (VIII-IX), even how a person behaves in conversation (IV.8). Clearly, virtue involves a person's handling of both worldly circumstances and features of his own inner life that constantly come into play, in every area of life throughout even the most ordinary day." (RUSSELL-2012, p. 49)

"[J]ust as autonomy ... is crucial to well-being, it is crucial as well to human selfhood. To have a self in the way that humans do is to choose and act and live through the exercise of practical reasoning: in other words, autonomy is inseparable from human selfhood.... [W]ell-being requires the fulfillment not merely of whatever individual make-up one happens to have, but the fulfillment of a make-up that genuinely counts as a *self* of the sort that is characteristic of human beings.... But to say that well-being requires the fulfillment of such a self is to say that human well-being requires the fulfillment *of a distinctly human self*." (RUSSELL-2012, p. 61) [PSA: cf. STERN-GILLET on the self as achievement.]

"[E]motional fulfillment is a central aspect of a person's happiness. Surely that is true, but I think we can make much *better* sense of that point by recognizing the importance our humanity has for our happiness. When we talk about psychic affirmation or flourishing, we mean at least that a person views his life with joy rather than sorrow or regret, and feels a sense of satisfaction with his life and a sense of engagement with his central activities. [fn54: This is the idea behind Aristotle's thesis that pleasure, which for Aristotle is a genus of certain human emotions (Rhetoric II.1), is what 'completes' activity (NE X.4).]" (RUSSELL-2012, p. 62)

"Aristotle says we should focus on agency, that is, not on how things go within an active life but on the activities themselves (I.10 1100b7-11)." (RUSSELL-2012, p. 67)

"[I]f we are to identify happiness - that is, if we are to identify genuine human fulfillment - then we should focus on what defines us as humans, and that is our agency, not our patiency. That this view is Aristotle's is clear, I think, from a couple of things. One is of course his well-known view that practical rationality is our characteristic human 'function' (ergon). A human life, by nature, is 'a practical sort of life of what possesses reason,' and to be human is to be active in accordance with practical reason. From this Aristotle concludes that human happiness is a life of activity in accordance with practical reason (NE I.7 1098a3-18). Likewise, Aristotle holds that loving onself is primarily loving that element in one that thinks and is intelligent about practical things (IX.4 1166a17-19). This is the role of practical wisdom (phronesis), by which one deliberates well about what is beneficial for people, including the good life itself (VI.5 1140a26-28). And it is also our nature to construct our lives as organized systems of ends, and in so doing to create ourselves - so that 'in a way, the work *is* the maker in actuality' (IX.7 1168a7). Aristotle's belief that our agency defines us and our capacity for happiness is also clear from his view that even though having and enjoying good things is necessary for happiness, something will count as a *good* thing for someone only insofar as practical reasoning enables it to occupy the right sort of place in his life. [fn10: See NE I.10 1100a24-29; III.4 1113a22-33; IV.1 1120a4-8; V.91137a26-30; VII.13 1153b21-25; X.6 1176b23-27; EE VII.5 1248b31-32; Politics VII.13 1332a22-27... This is an important point, one that is entirely missed by construals of eudaimonism as beginning with some independent notion of good or worthwhile things, and then identifying happiness with a life that has those things (e.g. Telfer 1980, chap. 2).]" (RUSSELL-2012, pp. 68-69) [PSA: the complete good is the best life]

"Human action and practical reason are inseparable: humans do not merely *behave*, but rather they *act* because they are capable of reflecting on their impulses and feelings and can - indeed *must* - find reasons for the things they do and the ways they feel." (RUSSELL-2012, p. 72) [PSA: this is related to activity 'meta logou'; cf. BURNYEAT-1981]

"For Aristotle, living a good human life means actually *living*, being active, and so it is not enough that one merely be in some state of mind, say, or asleep one's whole life. As Aristotle says, happiness is something that attaches to a person's life because of what he or she *does*, and not just as a gift or good luck. This rules out the idea that happiness could consist in just *being* virtuous - 'being a good person,' in our idiom - as opposed to being engaged in virtuous activity. It is also clear that this constraint stems directly from Aristotle's conception of human beings as active, practically rational creatures - which, I have argued, is the right thing to say about humans and human happiness. It is this that explains why Aristotle will go on to say that it is activity of a certain sort that 'controls' happiness (NE I.10 1100b8-11)." (RUSSELL-2012, pp. 73-74)

"[H]ow can happiness fulfill its role as the final end for deliberation about one's life as a whole, if happiness is not inclusive of one's life as a whole?" (RUSSELL-2012, p. 77) [PSA: eudaimonia = fulfillment is living well, i.e. the best life, i.e. the complete good]

"As Aristotle notes, this account of happiness is incomplete without an account of virtue (I.11 1102a6-7). Virtue, he says, is the excellence of the practical rationality that makes our lives distinctly human, and this practical rationality is twofold: on the one hand, we are practically rational in the sense that such rationality is a directing capacity that we possess; and on the other, we are also practically rational insofar as our emotional life is capable of being shaped by that directing capacity (1102a26-1103a3). Success or excellence of a practically rational creature, taken in the first sense, is practical wisdom, and excellence of practical intellect, and the success or excellence of rationality in the second sense is virtue of character, such as generosity and temperance (1103a3-10). Aristotle says the same thing about virtue in the Eudemian Ethics as well (EE II.1 1218b37-1219a39). There Aristotle considers what our humanity comes to - what is the mode of life that is fully human. That mode, he says, is active: not just organic life, but living one's life through the exercise of practical reasoning, including bringing harmony to our inner lives through the agreement of practical reason and emotion. But of course, he says, that kind of harmony is just what we mean by virtue, so it must be the virtues that make us fully human. Likewise, the Aristotelian author of the Magna Moralia (I.4-5 1184b22-1185b13) argues that it is through the exercise of practical reasoning that we are active in a way that can be our good, and the virtues just are our success as practically rational creatures. In sum, on the Aristotelian view, an active life of virtue is a life in which one is fulfilled, excellent, and thriving as a human being - a life in which one is 'fully human,' in Christine Korsgaard's phrase. [fn49: Korsgaard 1986. See also Broadie 1991, 35; McDowell 1995a. Cf. EE I.5 1215a30-1216a10.]" (RUSSELL-2012, p. 81)

"[I]n a living thing, its excellence is whatever enables it to live in its distinctive, characteristic mode in a flourishing way. In a human, this flourishing is not just health or vigor, but happiness, and we live best in a distinctly human way when we live with practical wisdom and emotional soundness - and *that* is how we know that such things are our excellences, that is, our 'virtues.'" (RUSSELL-2012, p. 82)

"Although happiness requires bodily and worldly goods that we cannot control, Aristotle also insists that it is a mistake simply to track a person's fortunes in assessing the happiness of his life. This, he says, is because a person's fortunes 'are not where living well or badly is located, but rather human life needs them in addition, as we have said, and *it is activities in accordance with virtue that control our happiness*, and the opposite sort of activities that control the opposite state' [CHECKTHIS]." (RUSSELL-2012, p. 90)

"[T]he control thesis also reflects the difference *in kind* between virtuous activity and other goods with respect to happiness: in a word, it is not simply one final good among others. This rules out a simplistic 'laundry list' approach to happiness, as if it just consisted in a plurality of goods all of a piece (as Socrates shows in the Euthydemus). For creatures of our kind, virtuous activity is a part of happiness in a way that nothing else can be, as much as the potter is part of the pot-making process in a way that nothing else can be." (RUSSELL-2012, p. 91)

"To have a sense of self ... is to have a sense of the totality of those central relationships, commitments, attachments, and projects that give one's life its unique shape as being one's own. As such, it makes sense to think of the self in this sense as a kind of *identity*, by which I mean all those features of a person without which he could no longer recognize his life as his." (RUSSELL-2012, p. 96)

"Happiness is something *active*: it involves actively pursuing ends, not standing by as things unfold. [7] For Aristotle, happiness just *is* a kind of activity (energeia, I.10 1101a14-15; X.7 1177a12). [fn7: NE I.5 1095b31-1096a2; X.6 1176a33-1176b2; EE I.3 1215a7-19; I.4 1215a20-25; MM I.3 1184b14-17; I.4 1185a9-13; Politics VII.3 1325a32-24, 1325b12-16.]" (RUSSELL-2012, p. 110)

"It is important to see that for Aristotle, it is by practical reasoning that we guide our lives, *including* our lives as patients. This is why Aristotle denies that conventional goods apart from virtue have a power to benefit us just as such. For instance, he says repeatedly that things that are genuinely or properly good are those that are so for the virtuous and wise person (NE III.4 1113a22-33; X.6 1176b23-27; Politics VII.13 1332a22-27), whose use of them is always good (NE I.10 1100a24-29; IV.1 1120a4-8). As the author of the Magna Moralia makes clear, Aristotelians generally understood these to be things like public office, wealth, strength, and beauty, which the good person uses well and the bad person badly (MM I.1 1183b27-35, 1183b39-1184a4; II.9). Furthermore, Aristotle says that such goods do not benefit fools who use them (EE VII.15 1248b31-32), and even harm bad persons who use them (NE V.9 1137a26-30)." (RUSSELL-2012, p. 111)

"[H]appiness is something relatively stable: happiness does not just follow one's fortunes, in which case happiness would be like a chameleon's colors, but follows rather the goodness of one's activities (1100a32-b30). This, then, is what Aristotle means by virtue's 'controlling' happiness: whatever else we may need, it is primarily virtuous activity that defines the tenor of a life where happiness is concerned." (RUSSELL-2012, p. 112)

"[W]e might say that activities of friendship go on not merely *in relation to* particular close relationships, but *as embodied in* those particular relationships.... friendship is not a good in addition to, or as a context for, virtuous activity, but is itself a kind of virtuous activity from which one's friend is inseparable.... on this view, happiness consists not in virtuous activity *plus* friendship, but in that virtuous activity that *is* friendship." (RUSSELL-2012, p. 114)

"[G]ood things (such as a career or a family) can be parts of happiness only for those who act with virtue, that is, practical wisdom and emotional soundness. As we have seen, if we think of virtuous activity as distinct from these other goods, then the claim that good things can be parts of happiness only for the virtuous is just the bland claim that virtue and these other goods are all necessary for happiness, and thus fails to establish any 'controlling' role for virtue. But once we reject the formalized conception of the self, we can see a much more intimate relation between virtuous activity and such goods. For instance, a career that one pursues with practical wisdom and emotional soundness is itself an on-going pattern of virtuous activity - it is one of the very 'forms and modes' of the life of a virtuous person with a career - and therefore is the sort of good that is available only to virtuous persons. And this gives virtuous activity a defining, controlling role in happiness after all: it is only insofar as things like careers can be transformed into on-going patterns of virtuous activity that we should think of them as potential parts of happiness in the first place." (RUSSELL-2012, pp. 131-132) [PSA: per Sparshott, this could also be seen as the transformation of a telos into a skopos.]

"[B]odily and external goods matter for our happiness ... because they are the very form and mode of *this* activity that is *this* happiness. It is virtuous activity that controls happiness, but on the embodied conception of the self, there is no difference between virtuous activity and all the ways in which one interacts with unique parts of the physical world with practical wisdom and emotional soundness." (RUSSELL-2012, p. 214)

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